the psn is down. maybe you’ve heard of this? it’s just been in the news several thousand times. from gamer to politician, everyone just has their knickers in a twist over this whole issue. if it isn’t bitching and complaining about the lack of online games, they’re banging on about their personal information being stolen.

we live in a day and age where NO ONE guards their privacy. clerks try asking for your postal code and phone number when you’re out shopping. ten people ahead of me in a line don’t even blink when asked for this info, but i become the bitch for refusing. you need my postal code so i can buy leather gloves? no, go fuck yourself.

almost everything requires a credit card, to ‘verify it’. hotel rooms, dinner reservations, online shopping, renting anything – do you know you can’t make a facebook app without a credit card or mobile phone number? what a load of horse shit!

privacy… being violated… and we are all pointing the finger at sony? not quite fair.

guess what? sony, like a lot of other companies, isn’t immune to hacking. or theft. best buy got hacked. that was pretty recent, but there is NO industry that is safe. this is the world we live in. this is the price we pay for things at our fingertips. tech, finance, government. a few years ago, even the super bowl stadium site got hacked.

little_nerdxo and i have been working our way through the new lego star wars. we can’t sync the trophies, but i wouldn’t trade the time we spent together for anything. captainadventure, who is more of an online player than i am, is using her time to catch up on trophies.

personally, i’d actually argue that i like the break. i’m playing the sims almost non-stop [hence the lack of blogging, which has also been nice]. i’ve been spending more time with friends on patios, going for car rides, and just generally enjoying the spring time in toronto.

i love my playstation. this is just a rough patch. the ps3 is an international free service. it’s got a great selection of games. it’s my lifeline, as evidenced a few weeks ago. i can play my old ps2 games on it. it cures cancer, for fuck’s sake. are we truly going to kick it when it’s down?

i’m not a total fan girl. could sony have done more? probably. i am not pretending that they’re innocent but i also don’t know the full side of the story. if anything, it comes down to a 50/50 scenario. big business has a responsibility, but why are we going gently into the good night? consumers, like it or not, also have a certain responsibility. it’s kind of like the adult equivalent of ‘don’t talk to strangers’. don’t fuck a guy who doesn’t wear a condom. don’t download every goddamn thing you see online.

golden rule of this digital age? don’t give out your credit card to everyone who asks. a credit card is not some kind of magical, bullet-proof vest.

atomicgamer.com has a great story about ps3 hacks and specifically the technology behind it. it’s kind of an older story, but it highlights exactly the reasons why sony is kind of in shit over this whole hacking business. this is a summary, but please read the full story for the juicy details.

It’s possible, even probable, that Sony won’t be able to keep hackers and cheaters off of PSN. The 360 can by way of a permanent ban of a specific console and is only possible due to unique console IDs hard-wired in, but rumor has it that these can be changed on the PS3. Depending on how Sony set up that security, it might be impossible to stop people from logging on with a new ID every time.

“Sony will offer a premium subscription to the PlayStation Network, one that doesn’t replace the current free service but does offer “an enhanced experience,” with additional content, early demo access and more. It will cost $49.99 a year. Jack Tretton announced the plans for the premium service at Sony’s E3 news conference. Subscribers may also choose a $17.99-per-3 months pricing plan. PlayStation Plus subscribers also would get “hundreds of dollars” in free content and discounts on certain items within the PlayStation Store.

The first three months of the service will be available for free for a limited time to subscribers, Tretton said. Standard PSN features now delivered for free will continue to be free, Tretton said. This would include standard multiplayer and messaging.”

thank christ, eh, everyone? there’d be a riot! that being said, i will not be drinking the koolaid anytime soon.

wowzers. looks like red dead is continuing to hit the world by storm. while i continue to dick around with battlefield bad company 2 and wolfenstein, my psn friend list all reads ‘red dead redemption’. ppfft. i have never been one to succumb to peer pressure.

so far, we can conclude this one, solid fact: this shit is bananas!

red dead redemption logo

on the day of release, i kind of figured it would be a big deal since it was one of the trending topics on twitter. legend has it that twitter predicted film success and also key news items. then again, twitter also loves that little jamima beaver girl – and we all know talk is cheap.

anyway. i digress. my point here is that this seems to be another hit for rockstar – the bitches who made you grand theft auto, bully and shit. cowen group analyst doug creutz [never heard of him either, but he’s apparently a big deal in the financial world], has raised his previous estimate for the game to take 2.2 million to now sell 4 million units in its first year. now, mind you, this is all based on what he calls “very strong pre-order demand”.

mind you, this could very well be the equivalent of the weatherman telling you that winter will be almost over because some rodent unexpectedly had to take a piss, and then the next week you are snowed in for days… but we’re sick of mysteries.

captainadventure, though, highly recommends it, as have various other folks i have spoken to. conversations go something like this:

people magazine: ‘dude, this shit is like grand theft auto and fallout 3’.obnoxious gamer: ‘mmmmmm’.people magazine: ‘…plus there are cowboys’.obnoxious gamer: ‘fallout 3 plus gta plus cowboys…WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT LEAD WITH THAT SHIT?!’

methinks i will be buying it soon – the summer game drought is almost upon us. now THAT shit is bananas.

folks, this is shit you need to be aware of. since i bought mine secondhand, i am very aware of this stuff and wanted to pass along. here are some signs your ps3 is dying:

– not playing dvds
– freezing games [not fallout 3]
– if your ps3 beeps. during boot up this is normal, or when you’ve installed some software. if it’s doing so during a game, you may have a problem
– when your ps3’s regular green light turns yellow
– when your ps3’s green light will suddenly turn to orange and then keep blinking red light

if any of this happens, and you haven’t done it already, BACK UP YOUR GAME DATA. you will do nothing more important in your life. buy a new external hard drive, from somewhere like future shop or best buy. don’t get it from a place like factory direct, since i’ve done so and had them die on me. finally, if you have them, don’t forgot to deactivate all your shared PSN accounts. failing to do so means you can’t use them on your new PS3.

i would be remiss if i didn’t mention some sony gossip: plans to potentially make people pay for the services we have all been loving for free. straight from the tiger woods school of ‘we had everything, then chose to fuck it all up’ learning, rumours have been circulating for a while now. bigwigs are making it their mission to soothe all the children out there [specifically kaz hirai], but it doesn’t seem like it’s going away.

for centuries, happy little sony gamers have been lording it over their equally little xbox counterparts: we get this shit for FREE. so when the system goes down, or the servers are crammed, we’re ok with it. after all, sony has treated us pretty well, and not spun any microsoft bullshit ‘oh but we put that money into development…’ over us.

on the homefront, canadians really haven’t given a shit that we can’t get video and music through the playstation store. ‘fuck it,’ we shrug. ‘we’ll just download it somewhere else. we love this free service anyway and we’re ok with it being the way it is.’

now they want us to PAY for it? come on. all the games are sold promising leaderboards, trophies and all that good shit, so probably not that. are they going to make us play to use the biggest sony joke ever, playstation home?